An in-between phase

beanielou

Enjoy your evening 🥂

PennysIntoPounds

Feeling a bit sad today as it's been three months since we got planning permission and we thought we'd have started building or at the worst have the tender for building contract in place by now.
But then we thought it would take months rather than years to get planning permission so I don't know why we thought the council would suddenly start doing any work.
If we don't begin building next month then that's looking like another year in addition to the two years it will take, as seasonal weather won't allow for enough to be done in time.

Staying at family friends flat will be for maximum two years and we frankly won't have enough money with depreciated savings, worse credit ratings based on having kept moving address, getting older and thus less able to access decent mortgage deals, and most importantly having somewhere to live, for another year (minimum at this rate) to be added on.

So it's looking like once we move at the end of next month we'll be saving towards a deposit for a tiny flat in an area we don't want to live in not near family or friends.
And we'll still be need our near impossible aim of 100k extra in savings to do that.
It's not just upsetting to have to let go of our dream of living in a modest two/three bed (on land we already own !!!!!!), but we feel like we've had our lives and choices buffeted in a direction that isn't going to pay off and the feeling of wasted time and money and powerlessness is horrible. And all because the council just don't care about responding to working class people. If we were a big company or a wealthy landowner the build would be completed by now. And there is literally nothing we can do about it. Society is very unfair and I want to cry.

Anyway. No bad vibes on a Sunday 😂
We'll just have to put in our final complaint, hope for a miracle, and realistically (well, horribly unrealistically) keep doing everything we can to get as close to 100k in the next two years and hope what we have will be enough to at least get any home of our own.
How hard can it be 😂😭😭

By the way, if anyone can use five or ten 50p off a real ale or cider in a Wetherspoons vouchers by the 1st May let me know and I'll pop them in the post for you

Baldybear

Sorry to hear rhe council are such a pain.  Could the local mp help or maybe is there such a thing as a housing ombudsman?   

Trying to save for such an amount seems almost out of reach but you both seem determined so i am sure you will make it 😊

beanielou

Also suggest that your local MP can help. You could pop to your next constituency clinic. 

PennysIntoPounds

Thanks @Baldybear and @beanielou
We previously contacted the local MP when we were trying to get planning permission and the council just straight up lied to them, saying they'd done loads of things they hadn't and that we'd not paid loads of things we had (as soon as they'd asked as well).
We'll try again but even if it does have any effect, it'll very likely be too late for us to be able to not face needing to find an additional year's worth of money to make up.
Housing Ombudsman to the best of my knowledge is for complaints about direct housing providers rather than needing a home issues but will double check 

KajiKita

Contacting the MP was my first thought, and actually even more so with the history and evidence of blatant lies etc.

But that’s tomorrow’s challenge. For today, sending you huge, squashy but gentle hugs with a garnish of sparkles ✨ 

KK x

Watty1

With you on the frustrations of planning which is why my aim of converting my barn has not progressed yet.

You might already know this but there is a really good face book page called 'planning geeks' run by someone who really is a geek  He gave me some super helpful advice and it might just be worth having a read on there for ideas on how to progress forwards.  (He runs a website of same name but the Face book page is full of comments so I have learnt a lot from it although some is area specific.

Sun_Addict

No wonder you feel fed up 🙁 Why are councils so rubbish, they use every excuse under the sun to do nothing 😡 Could you copy your MP into the complaint to the council? How about publicly calling out the council eg on their X (Twitter) page if they have one? 

PennysIntoPounds

Thanks gang, appreciate the support and things to look into.

Today's small efforts:

Admin
Tidying
Comping

Vinted updates
45 minute total carpet walk
Entered some competitions, today I'm mostly looking forward to winning a coffee machine I can flog for the flat pot

Some sort outs of my stuff at Mr PIPs. I have managed to part with two whole books

Dinner is veggie cottage pie from the freezer, left over from when I was last here (thank you for bulk cooking, past me) and a very nice bottle of red wine that was one of my Christmas presents.

Happy Christmas everyone! 

Less_Talk_and_More_Action

Sorry to hear all of this @PennysIntoPounds It's so demoralising when you do everything you should do and the council can't even fulfill one of their most basic functions.  I feel increasingly that everything is set up to make us powerless in the hope that we will just give up and not bother anyone!! Agree with the MP suggestion but also local councillor for the ward.  It is an election year and if you present everything you have done in an evidence pack with a timeline alongside your complaint it might get somewhere.

Wishing you all the best.

L x